West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1887-07-29
emption from the laws of execution
and bankruptcy.
AN IDEAL MARRIAGE.

In recent letter / referred to
| Gov. Sprague, of Rhode Island, who
has found a second wife with less
exertion than he found the first, and
she seemed so satisfactory to his
eldest son that the son married her
sister, making somewhat curious
combination in relationship, but
from all accounts happy oneup to
the present time. 1t often occurs
that poverty and distress bring a
gratitude, content and loyalty not to
be found where there were great pros
poets or expectations. When Gov.
Sprague married the daughter of
Secretary Chase it seemed almost an
ideal marriage; the groom a young
manufacturer, merchant, General
and Governor, distinguished in the
three great branches of trade, war
and politics. He was presumed to
be the most complete cotton manu-
facturer in the United States, better
acquainted with machinery, staples
and the market than any living man,
and yet in the course Of time he
broke down, and in breaking lost his
philosophy, if he ever had any, lost
his party relations, lost his consist
ency to events, and finally lost his
wife and the remainder of his child
rem. He had overmarried, to use a
strange expression; that is to say,
he had not married the kind of
qualities which brought to him sup
port and content He had married
into a great sphere of life where am
bition was as natural as in some eX-
pectant house nearly related to roy
atty. His first wife's accomplish
ments had been in all the newspa-
pers and were her treasures. She
had been n rival of the Presidents s
wife during the war, and affected
almost every man with a strange
fascination. Her conversation was,
for this country, the perfection of
brilliancy, something like the ante
cedents furnished by Mad. de Stael
or Mad Recamier. She could take
hold of one visitor, or several, and
keep them all, so to speak, rhapso-
dised. This cotton manufactures,
who had been through the wiles of
politics, was no doubt charmed with
his wife at first, but as time proceed
ed, and he saw rocks ahead, and
through weakness of his own made
mistakes, he became d supremely
unhappy man, and she also felt that
she had bound herself to an unap-
preciative person. When they came
to separate there was scandal
which made one part Of the world
laugh and another part scowl, and
people took sides, and politicians
declared against the husband, and
he found himself somewhat in the
position of Gov. Sam Houston after
he had married a fine girl in Ten
nessee and had become the chief man
in the State. There was no eXpla
nation to make which would not re-
fleet on his children, and so they
parted, though not without pains,
perhaps, and longings hardly now to
be ever appeased, since they have
formed other relations, and the past
is like q high wall. The oldest son
adhered to his father. showing that
the father was not without some
family following and defence. 1t is
said that the son, who in his moth
er's absence became a spectacle to
fashionable people, going barefooted
and peddling pond lilies at the very
resort she established, has recently
come into the possession of a sum of
money set upon him at his birth
when everything was hopeful and
well established. The understand
ing is that $4,000 was put in trust
for the boy, and if he has lived q
years the interest upon this amount
at fair interest, say 10 per cent,
would new make the total upward of
$3.50, 900, enough money to gladden.
many a man of talent, many strug-
Cling merchant, or many an abused
statesman. This nest-egg, accord
ing to the accounts, has put stabili-
ty into the oldhomestead,a land sooth-
ed the new relations of both father
and son. Yet we can find thousands
of families in the land not $4,000
ahead of the world who are without
apprehensions or backbitings or re-
grets.
A REMARKABLE STEAMER.